Can I do this?

So in my quest to look hot lose weight/get healthy I've started the fad of the Couch to 5k running plan. I started this training last summer with my sister and then it got too hot out and she quit babysitting for me so I in turn quit the 'training'. I started this training again around February of this year while I had my gym membership... You see, here in good ol' Ohio, it is way too cold to walk/run outside in Febraury. So I made it through week 3 while at the gym.... Then my membership ran out and it was still too cold to do exercise outdoors. It just so happened the week after my gym membership ran out I had won a contest here at work and won 6 weeks worth of Body Pump classes (which I'm actually LOVING, by the way). So that is 2 nights a week and the weight loss group I'm doing is 1 night a week combined with cold temperatures I've been slacking (to say the least) on my 'training'. I would average a training about once a week, MAYBE twice a week if we had good weather that week. So Sunday- which is normally my rest day- I decided I better get out there and enjoy a nice training walk/jog. Mind you, on these once maybe twice a week walks- I have been ATTEMPTING to do week 4 of the training. For those of you who don't know- week 4 is a 5 minute warm up walk, 3 minute jog, 90 second walk, 5 minute jog, 2 1/2 minute walk, 3 minute jog, 90 second walk, 5 minute jog and then a 5 minute cool down. So back to Sunday.... I decided it was nice out and despite everything that needed done around the house I would lace up for a quick 30 minute stroll and make yet another attempt at week 4. Well, GUESS WHAT!?? I DID IT!!!! I completed week 4... Now, I know some of you may laugh at this but this is huge for me... I have NEVER been a runner- never really been an athlete- never done much besides cook, clean and watch reality tv shows!!! I've mentioned before that I've been reading/following a few blogs that give me inspiration... That is what made me decide to go out and do this c25k stuff. To prove to myself that I can do this! I am strong. I WILL do this! I need to do this to be healthy. My daughter and my husband and (hopefully soon) future child deserve to have a mommy that is here and present and can keep up with them while they play. I mean, honestly, I got cut from the volleyball team my freshman year of high school. I couldn't run then and I'm sure I'm at least 100lbs heavier than I was then... AND I'M DOING IT... I'm working on it at least!!!! I never said the sight was pretty but I did it and it was done. I saw on someone's Instagram or Facebook page that they described their running as 'wogging' aka- walking/jogging. I laughed and have been using that term for the last week!!! That is what I do... I'm so slow but at least I'm out there doing it! Another idea I saw on someone's IG is a squat challenge. Everytime she goes to the bathroom while at work, she does 10 squats. So, guess what? I did 20 squats on Friday every single time I went to the bathroom-- I even continued it while I was at home. In turn, I did about 200 squats on Friday. I have this condition called 'no ass/no hips' but a week or so ago I was walking by a full length mirror at work and realized, "Holy Shit! I'm actually starting to get an ass". I figured all the squats I'm doing at Body Pump and in the bathroom at work, I'll have a Kim Kardashian ass in no time!!!!

So all of this brings me back to my subject line... "Can I do this?"

Can I keep up this healthy lifestyle? FOR-EV-ER?

Can I run a 5k in a month? I had told one friend that I was thinking about signing up for one next month...

Can I be a good influence for my daughter/future child/ren? Yes! I can do this... I can turn my life around, right here, right now, at almost 30 years old.

Can I learn to make more healthy recipes? I have already started doing this... I LOVE to cook and bake. I just don't LOVE the taste of Fat Free cheeses!

Can I get Kim Kardashian's ass? I highly doubt it, but you bet your ass I'm going to try!! No pun intended!!

Can I lose 100 LBs? I sure hope so. My goal weight is about 80 LBs from where I am now. BUT my total weight loss since a week after my daugthers birth is 40 LBs. So that would make my grand total ideal weight loss about 120ish LBs.. I hope I can do this before I die!

The point of a SURPRISE party is what?

So this post is going to be total therapy rambling on my part. I'm going to apologize in advance. I'll start at the beginning for all you... My mom turned 60 last week. Of course, that means PAR-TAY! A SURPRISE party is what I had in mind. Around Thanksgiving one of my family members had said to my younger sister about wanting to throw a party for my mom. Mind you, this was six months before the occasion. When she told me about this, I said, perfect, I want to throw her a party but not sure where we'll get the money from! So we decided at that point we'd let our family member help us out at this point. BIGGEST. MISTAKE. EVER. When said family member contacted me after Christmas she said she wanted to have a 'meeting' about the surprise party. In talking to this same person she made the comment of this "I have no idea how to throw a party together. Your mom does everything perfect. Your mom always handles all aspects of holidays, parties, etc.". Mind you, I have a daughter that has celebrated two birthdays, I got married in 2011, my youngest sister is pregnant so I'm planning her baby shower. So, needless to say, I'm a product of my mother's genes and I know how to throw a party. We also have my youngest sister (who threw my bridal shower) and another family member (that is AWESOME) who have said they would help with this whole planning process. Not to mention I have a total of 3 sisters and only myself and one of them is doing this (that is another story). So- anyway- We have this 'meeting'. We decide on a color scheme; Silver and a Tealish Blueish color. I say, how about balloons on some of the tables? Of course, no, that is stupid, I don't like balloons. She doesn't want a cake, she wants cupcakes. She wants to use all of my mother's serving dishes and supplies she uses when throwing party or at any function. She doesn't want anyone else but us to bring the food but doesn't want to help make it. She wants a limo to pick my mom up and take her to the party. There are about 125ish on the invite list, the place she has 'chosen' to have the party at holds probably around 75ish?!

Now, a little about my mom. She will drop anything for anyone. She owned a resturant and her passion is cooking. She has an entire basement full of serving dishes, serving spoons, silverware, party supplies, etc. My mom also thinks no one can do anything better than her. So if we actually pull this off (we are 24 hours out and I think we are doing a good job) she will be shocked. I have had a lot of people offer to help with the party and food because they want to give back to my mom, like she has given them. My mom and stepdad own a concrete company. That is what my mom does, she helps pour concrete with my stepdad. My mother is not fancy but is always presentable and very well put together.

So I leave this first so called 'meeting' in a rage. I call my sister and we have second thoughts and said 'I wish we would have just told her we are handling it and we'll let you know if we need any help!'. Too late for that. So I call my other awesome family member and tell her my plan. Lets tell our other family member that we are going to do the food since she is paying for everything else, we all think this is perfect. The people that want to help can and we can control that situation. So me, my sister and awesome family member have a seperate 'meeting' to decide the food. Now, along with food, is dessert, right?? We plan out desserts too. We tell everyone that wanted to help and bring something what to bring, we delegate and decide what each of us is making and all that jazz. I get a phone call about 2ish weeks before the big party for another 'meeting'. I go over there, by myself, already in a rage because the week before my loving and ever so caring mother decided to throw my youngest sister a SURPRISE birthday/housewarming party- THE DAY AFTER SHE MOVED IN. Yeah. Mind you, my sister is 5 months pregnant and HATES surprises! And of course, that same sister dealt with our not so awesome family member for all of the invitations, which was another nightmare in itself. So, at my sister's house this terrible family member was just downright TERRIBLE that day. Saying things that didn't need to be said, saying things out of line, and being downright rude. This and a phone conversation took place the week before I have a second 'meeting' with her. While I'm on the phone with her discussing when I can 'meet' her she tells me "Well since you all said you were doing the food, I am going to take care of the desserts. I have ordered 4 dozen cupcakes, I have 5 cookie recipes, and I have about 3 cheesecake recipes." I am so taken aback that I don't say much besides that we had planned on someone bringing a texas sheet cake, someone bringing 3 kinds of cookies and cupcakes. She tells me, well you guys said 'food' but didn't say anything about dessert. Now, lets think about this; FOOD is what you eat. You EAT dessert. So that is why we planned on dessert too! And then I get off of the phone and think to myself, wait, 4 dozen cupcakes equals 48, there are at least probably going to be 100 people. So I go to this 'meeting'. She shows me all of the decorations which include balloons; which, she told me she didn't like and didn't want to do any of. She shows me the scrapbook paper she got for the centers of the tables, which, my sister was supposed to get. Her response to the reason she got those was "Well your sister was honked off at her party last weekend so I'm not asking her to do anything." Ok, fine. I looked at her and said, "Mom was out of line to throw a surprise party for her THE DAY AFTER SHE MOVED IN. She is 5 months pregnant!!! She was tired. She wanted to have her house organized. You can't blame her." We proceed to go and talk about everything else with the party. She tells me she got the limo and is planning to show up at mom's house at 4pm and WE are supposed to figure out how to get her in the limo. She also wants ME to ask my mom for all of her 'catering stuff'. I looked at her like she had lost her mind. I told her NO, I will not ask mom. She will know something is going on. Between me and 4 other family members, we can get enough stuff. She also proceeded to get lippy with me and tell me "Well, I am throwing your mom this party. I  want it to be nice and not look like its thrown together." I just smiled and said, I do too. You act like we want this party to be super shitty or something. We want it to be nice. We want to do nice things for our mom. And I left. I couldn't take it anymore. SOO... She calls me again for some reason about this party. She says to me "Are you going to make sure your mom looks nice for the party? How are you going to get her in the limo?" I tell her that we have told mom that we are going out to dinner for my other sister's finace's birthday. Mom ALWAYS looks nice when she goes out. You act like she walks around in a moomoo! And I tell her, we haven't figured out how we will get her in the limo. This terrible family member then tells me this "Well, I think I'm going to call your mom the morning of the party and tell her we are having a party for her. I want to make sure her hair and nails are done. I know if someone were throwing me a party and I showed up without my hair and nails done I'd be pissed." Again, I can't process what she just said to me because I'm too floored she is thinking of telling her so I hang up the phone. Now, let me ask you a question.... WHAT IS THE POINT OF A SURPRISE PARTY? The Surprise!!!!! BINGO! You got it! And this terrible family member was so hell bent on this being a surprise and now a week before, she wants to RUIN the surprise. We tell my step dad what is going on- see, we didn't tell him because he can't keep a secret! He is super excited and can't wait to see the look on mom's face and all that jazz. He talks to my aunt who proceeds to tell him that she is going to tell him. I'm told that he told her not to and that it will ruin everything. I leave a message for her on Monday or Tuesday the week of the party. I tell her, please don't tell mom, the whole point of this is the SURPRISE and we have her fooled and she will look fine because she always looks good. She also had her hair and nails done last week for her real birthday celebration. On to the next problem: How to get her in the limo. Terrible family member leaves it up to me and my sister to figure out how to get my mom to the party. We come up with that her fiance's parents rented a limo since its his 30th and the driver is from mom's area so he will pick her and our stepdad up and then go to pick up my sister and birthday boy and then to pick up his parents and have them all to dinner by 5pm. Mom buys it. My sister even asked mom to bake a cake for his birthday dinner. Apparently, my sister left a message on said Terrible family member's answering machine letting her know that mom knows there is a limo and this is the story we gave her. Terrible family member then calls my sister and bitches at her because she didn't want her to know about the limo. The limo was going to show up at my mom's house and she and my step dad were just going to get in without a fight and show up at the party. WRONG. Neither of them would have bought it. Plus, the whole point of a surprise party is the person's face when they walk in the party. We ALL would have missed that surprised face had she seen a limo show up at her house. So, not only does said terrible family member not know how to throw a party, she apparently doesn't have the slightest clue what a SURPRISE PARTY is all about. Now, there are a few other details that are missing like, the fact that I have another sistser that refused to help because said terrible family member was planning (guess the party is about her, not my mom), the fact that when I said I wanted to put a little thing in the invites that said "no gifts", terrible family members response was this "Well, I want everyone to bring her presents. She always buys things for people." (guess it is classy and not tacky to request presents), and the fact that terrible family member said on numerous occassions "I want this party to be nice for your mom." (guess we are all just hillbillies and don't want nice things or can't do nice things for other people), the fact that she wanted to order 48 cupcakes, do bitesize cheesecakes, and cookies and when I told her that if you do bitesize cheesecakes people are going to take 3 or 4 of them especially if you don't have enough cupcakes and her response was "Well, gee, are people hungry" (guess when you come to party at 4pm, you shouldn't expect an entire meal nor expect to get a cupcake or any sort of dessert because you can only take 1 bite sized piece).

So now that you have the ENTIRE background (sorry for the rant!) this makes me sad. Sad because this is about my mom. This has turned into a huge mess. This is supposed to be so fun. The entire process has not been fun. This is supposed to be exciting and happy. I am NOT looking forward to tomorrow. I am guessing some words will be had between all of us and terrible family member. I am hoping this can all be before my mom gets there and she will be surprised and happy. My mom is one of my best friends. She understands me. She understands this terrible family member. The hardest part of all of this is that I haven't been able to call my mom and express all of this to her! I can't wait until Sunday when I can tell her EVERY single detail of this planning process!!! I'm hoping that she will be surprised and no one ruins it for her and that this is truely a great experience for her. If this party weren't for my mom, I would have thrown in the towel long ago and told my terrible family member to shove it 'no thanks, I don't want to help.' My mom does so much for everyone and I just want to do this for her! I've got about 24 hours until the surprise and then once it is over I don't have to deal with this terrible family member. Moral of this story: If you want something done, do it yourself. And another moral: You can't pick your family members.